Jun 19, 2014

Haydn and Mozart in the Memoirs of Ludwig-Wilhelm Tepper de Ferguson

In the summer of 1789, on his way home to Warsaw from Strasbourg, where he had spent six years studying at the university, the Polish musician and composer Ludwig-Wilhelm Tepper de Ferguson (1768–1838) visited Vienna. During that stay, he visited Joseph Haydn in Eszterháza. In his memoirs he describes the events as follows.
Enfin nous entrâmes dans cet heureux pays d'Autriche. Tout y avait un autre aspect. L'abondance et le bien-être se manifestaient partout; et l'esprit éclairé de Joseph Second, commençait à se répandre sur les campagnes. Nous restâmes trois semaines à Vienne dont le séjour me plut tant, qu'il fallait tout le désir que j'avais de revoir les miens, pour me résoudre à m'en séparer. Je fis un voyage à Esterhazy en Hongrie; pour voir Joseph Haydn, qui y était établi auprès du prince de ce nom, grandpère de celui d'à présent. Ce prince vivait en grand seigneur, ayant une petite cour, un très bon spectacle, et réunissant autour de lui tout ce qu'une grande fortune peut procurer d'agréments et de plaisirs. Lorsqu’un étranger arrivait, on lui envoyait aussitôt un équipage pour voir les jardins et des billets pour le théâtre. Je m'y rendis le soir même, et j'y trouvai Haydn, que je reconnus à l'instant sur les nombreux portraits que j'avais vu de lui. Je l'abordai en lui disant qu’un amateur passionné de la musique et admirateur de ses compositions avait fait ce voyage pour faire sa connaissance personnelle. Il vint souper avec moi: le lendemain matin une voiture du prince nous attendait pour la promenade: je fus prendre Haydn qui me montra les détails du jardin; ensuite il vint diner avec moi et l'après diner je retournai à Vienne. Il me conta en abrégé son histoire, qui était accompagnée de détails tres curieux. Lorsque je lui fis connaitre tout ce que je pensais de ses compositions, et que je lui retraçai le juste enthousiasme qu'elles causaient partout, il me répondit: "Ah! Monsieur: nous avons à Vienne quelqu’un qui nous écrasera tous; c'est un génie universel, auprès duquel je ne suis qu’un enfant." Il parlait de Mozart. Celui-ci vivait encore à cette époque, mais je n'eus pas la satisfaction de le voir, car il était absent. Il rendait, à ce qu'on dit, le même respect à Haydn, qu'il regardait comme son maitre en composition. 

[translation:]

Finally we entered this happy country of Austria. Everything there looked different [from Salzburg]. Abundance and prosperity were manifest everywhere; and the enlightened spirit of Joseph II was beginning to spread across the country. We stayed in Vienna for three weeks, a stay that pleased me so much that I had no desire to see my family and bring myself to depart. I made a trip to Esterhazy in Hungary to see Joseph Haydn who had settled there with the prince of that name, the grandfather of the present one. This prince lived like a great lord, with a small court, a very good theater, surrounding himself with all attractions and pleasures that a great fortune can provide. When a foreigner arrived, he immediately sent a carriage to see the gardens and theater tickets. I went there the same evening and I found Haydn, whom I recognized instantly from the many portraits I had seen of him. I approached him and told him that a passionate lover of music and admirer of his compositions had traveled to make his personal acquaintance. He came to have dinner with me. The next morning a carriage of the prince was awaiting us for the excursion. I took Haydn who showed me the details of the garden; Then he came to dine with me and after dinner I returned to Vienna. He gave me a brief outline of his story which was accompanied by very curious details. When I told him what I thought of his compositions and described to him the real enthusiasm they caused everywhere, he replied: "Ah! Sir: we have someone in Vienna who will crush us all; he is a universal genius, compared to whom I am a child." He spoke of Mozart, who at that time was still alive, but I had not the satisfaction of seeing him, because he was absent. They say that he showed the same respect for Haydn whom he regarded as his teacher in composition.

Eszterháza Palace seen from the garden, painting from 1780 by Bartolomeo Gaetano Pesci (Magyar Építészeti Múzeum, Budapest)

In July 1793, Tepper de Ferguson was in Vienna for the second time. At first he had no intention to stay for more than ten days, but then he changed his schedule.
Je ne comptais m'arrêter à Vienne que huit ou dix jours, et j'étais sur le point d'en partir, quand je vis annoncé dans les affiches du théâtre, la reprise de l’opéra, "La Flute Magique". Le vif désir que j’avais d'entendu ce chef d'œuvre de Mozart, dont retentissait toute l’Europe; me retint une semaine de plus. Il fut, à ma grande satisfaction donné trois jours de suite. La disposition d'esprit où j'étais me fit doublement gouter les beautés de cet ouvrage. Il me mit dans un tel ravissement, que je souhaitais mourir au sortir du théâtre, afin de ne pas perdre une seule des impressions que j'éprouvais. Je me disais comme les napolitains lorsqu'ils parlent de leur capitale: "Vedi il flauto magico e poi mori".
I had planned to stay in Vienna eight or ten days and I was about to leave, when I saw the restaging of the opera "The Magic Flute" announced on theater posters. The strong desire to hear this masterpiece of Mozart, which resounded throughout Europe, held me back for another week. To my great satisfaction it was given on three consecutive days. The state of mind I was in, made me doubly enjoy the beauties of this work. It put me into such delight that when I left the theater I wanted to die, so as not to lose a single one of the impressions I felt. I said to myself like the Neapolitans do when they say about their city: "See The Magic Flute and then die".

One of four surviving original Zettel of the premiere of Die Zauberflöte which was discovered in 2012, in the parish archive of St. Stephen's in Vienna.

The impression that Die Zauberflöte had on Tepper is reminiscent of the words of Robert Townson who in 1793, also attended a performance of this opera in Vienna (perhaps the same as Tepper). On p. 16 of his book Travels in Hungary, With a Short Account of Vienna in the Year 1793 (London: G.G. and J. Robinson, 1797) he writes the following:
In the suburbs there are several smaller theatres: and at one of these it was where I heard Mozart's Sauberflöte, the sweetest music ever composed.





The passages from Tepper de Ferguson's memoirs were first published in July 2011, by Olga Baird in her paper "Ludwig Wilhelm Tepper de Ferguson (1768–1838): Viennese years" at the 13th International Congress for Eighteenth Century Studies in Graz.

Updated: 17 November 2021

© Dr. Michael Lorenz 2014. All rights reserved.

Jun 16, 2014

Mozart: New Documents

Dexter Edge and David Black are pleased to announce the availability of a new online resource, Mozart: New Documents, a website presenting previously unknown references to Mozart or his music during his lifetime. Many of the new documents have been located through the expanded search opportunities of large-scale digitization projects such as Google Books, while others have been found using traditional methods.


Over 30 documents are available in this initial publication; we expect to add at least 60 more in the coming weeks, and our research continues. For each document we present a facsimile of the original (where available), a transcription, and commentary. Among the highlights of our first installment are previously unknown reports of the premieres of Le Nozze di Figaro and Così fan tutte, a previously unknown benefit concert given by Mozart in 1787, and a name-day serenade in Vienna in 1789 that featured the composer's "latest symphonies."

The site is a work in progress, and we welcome comments, corrections, and notifications of other new documents.

http://www.mozartdocuments.org/

Dexter Edge and David Black

dexedge@gmail.com
davidblack@post.harvard.edu

Jun 9, 2014

Haydn Singing at Vivaldi's Exequies: An Ineradicable Myth

The following post is based on a paper, which, in September 2002, I submitted to the conference "Music and Death in the Eighteenth Century" (King’s College London, 8–9 February 2003) and which was rejected by the organizer of this conference.

Introduction

That on 28 July 1741, the nine-year-old Joseph Haydn sang at Antonio Vivaldi's obsequies at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, is one of the most beloved myths of music historiography. Many authors seem to be deeply enamored with the image of two great artists, unknown to each other, meeting and somehow "passing the torch" from one creative spirit to the other. And yet, this scenario is pure fiction. Caused by a series of mistranslations and misunderstandings it became a popular myth and made its way into the biographies of both composers.

I have developed a simple and quick litmus test for the quality of a new Haydn biography: look for Vivaldi's name in the index, go to the page where Vivaldi is referred to (usually near the beginning of the book), and check if the boy Haydn is described as "having sung at Vivaldi's funeral". And if this is the case the book can be put away immediately. Countless books about Haydn – especially some of those published on the occasion of the 2009 anniversary – did not pass this test, because many authors simply cannot let go of this beloved myth. The most recent item that caused my surprise at the longevity of this story, is Frank Huss's book Joseph Haydn. Das unterschätzte Genie (who on earth ever underrated Haydn?), published in 2013, where on p. 17 the author states: "Likewise Haydn sang in the Requiem which was performed in the course of the funeral service of the composer Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741), who had surprisingly died in Vienna." On p. 823 of the Haydn-Lexikon (Laaber-Verlag 2010), Christin Heitmann writes: "Haydn war zu dieser Zeit Chorknabe an St. Stephan es ist daher zu vermuten, dass er im Chor bei der Beerdigung Vivaldis gesungen hat." The Vivaldi and the Haydn literature are equally flawed concerning this issue. Since every author copies from all the others, scholarship soon ends up in a kind of echo chamber and printed misinformation is being spread relentlessly. As I stated in a lecture on source studies that I gave in October 2005, at the University of Salzburg: "Going back to the original sources often leads to a systematic demolition of the secondary literature."

To shed more light on the fascinating genesis of the Haydn-Vivaldi myth we have to go back several decades when the music world first learned where and when Abbate Vivaldi left the living to meet his maker.

Vivaldi's Funeral

Until 1938, the year and place of Vivaldi's death were unknown. It was generally assumed that Vivaldi had died in Venice around 1743, until the Venetian scholar Rodolfo Gallo (1881–1964) came across the following passage in the Commemoriali of Pietro Gradenigo (1695–1772) in the collection of the Museo Correr (Mss. Gradenigo II, cap. 36).
L'Abbate Antonio Vivaldi eccelentissimo Sonatore di Violino detto il Prete Rosso, stimato compositore de concerti, guadagnò ai suoi giorni cinquantamille ducati, ma per sproporzionata prodigalità mori miserabile in Vienna.

The Abbé Antonio Vivaldi, a most excellent violinist called the Red Priest, the famous composer of concertos, is said in his times to have earned fifty thousand ducats, but owing to excessive prodigality died a pauper in Vienna.
Gradenigo's reference made it easy to locate the Viennese sources related to Vivaldi's death. In 1938, Rodolfo Gallo was the first to publish the entry in the death records of St. Stephen's Cathedral concerning Vivaldi's funeral on 28 July 1741, and the second, more detailed one in the so-called Bahrleihbuch (protocol of funeral fees) concerning the costs of this ceremony. Surprising as it may seem, the original document has never been transcribed completely and without mistakes. The entry in question in the Bahrleihbuch (with folios 177v and 178r merged into one picture) looks as follows.

The entry concerning Antonio Vivaldi's obsequies on 28 July 1741 in the Bahrleihbuch of the parish of St. Stephen's Cathedral (A-Wd, Bahrleihbuch [henceforth BLB] 1741, fol. 177v and 178r)

This entry can be translated as follows:
28 July
Conduct Vivaldi
The Hon. Mr. Antonius Vivaldi, secular priest, who died of internal inflammation at the age of 60, was seen by the coroner at the Saddler's House next to the Carinthian Gate and was buried in the graveyard of the civic hospital.
Peal of the small bells .........." 2"36"
Curate ..................................." 3"―
Shroud .................................." 2"15"
Parish picture ......................." 0"30"
Gravesite .............................." 2"―
Bier renter and sexton .........." 1.15"
Sacristan ..............................." –"30
6 bearers with coats .............." 4"30
6 lanterns .............................." 2"―
6 cowlboys ..........................." –"54"
Bier ......................................." –"15"
Pelican                        S[um] "19"45"
Most translations in the literature, like the one in the 1970 English edition of Walter Kolneder's book Antonio Vivaldi: His Life and Work (with the symptomatically wrong shelfmark "necrology, Vol. 23, fol. 63"), and in Karl Heller's Antonio Vivaldi: The Red Priest of Venice (Portland: Amadeus Press 1997) are flawed: a Bahrleicher is not a gravedigger and a Kuttenbub is not a choirboy. It seems that David Marinelli, the translator of Heller's book, copied some of his mistakes directly from Kolneder.

The "Wallerisches Haus" and the "Spitaller Gottsacker"

On 28 July 1741, Antonio Vivaldi died in the house of Agatha Waller, née Freisinger (1674–1751). The spelling of her name as "Wahler" which appears in the literature is based on a mistranscription of the h-like sign before the l, which – as I have explained on several occasions – was not an h, but a sign that doubled the following consonant.

The entry in the municipal death records concerning Vivaldi's death. Note the spelling "Waller[isches] Hauß" (A-Wsa, Totenbeschreibamt 42, fol. 395r)

In 1714, the four-story building at the south end of the Kärntnerstraße was bought by the Prague-born saddler Augustin Waller (1678–1730). Waller was able to afford this purchase, because he was the personal master saddler of the widowed Empress Wilhelmine Amalia. Even in 1830, there was still a saddler's workshop located on the ground floor of the building.

The "Wallerisches Haus" at the southwest corner of the Kärntnerstraße opposite the Kärntnertor in 1778. This clip from Huber's map shows that in the eighteenth century the building had only four storeys (W-Waw, Sammlung Woldan).

The groundplan of the fourth floor of the "Wallerisches Haus" which was drawn in March 1826, on the occasion of the addition of a fifth floor (the red color marks the reenforcements of the walls). On the right is the Kärntnerstraße, at the bottom the Sattlergasse towards the city wall. This floor is described in the 1788 tax register as consisting of two apartments of which each consisted of "2 rooms, 2 chambers, 1 kitchen". On the top a small atrium is visible. On the ground floor the big room at the corner of the house was the seating room of an inn (A-Wsa, Unterkammeramt, A33, Alte Baukonsense, 11811/1826).

There is a well-known photograph (Wien Museum, I.N. 19330), dating from 1858, that shows the two top floors of Vivaldi's last residence looking over the old city wall right beside the old Kärntnertor. I refrain from using this photograph which has been published many times in the literature. Instead I present an unknown photograph that has so far completely escaped the attention of Vivaldi scholars. It was taken in 1863 from the roof of the newly built Heinrichshof and, because the city wall and the Kärntnertor had already been torn down, shows the full facade of the house Stadt No. 1038, (the "Wallerisches Haus") where Vivaldi had died 122 years earlier. The fifth floor was added in 1826, and the roof is not the old tiled original. This may well be the very last photograph ever taken of this building. In the foreground we can see the early stages of the construction of the new K.K. Hof-Oper, in the back the rebuilding of the south tower of St. Stephen's is in progress.

The house Stadt No. 1038 (on the left) in 1863, where Vivaldi died in 1741. The two houses which today mark the beginning of the narrower part of Kärntnerstraße are not located on the exact same area as the buildings Stadt Nos. 1038 and 1019 that appear on this photograph (A-Wn, 114.145C).

The façade of Stadt 1038 towards the Kärntnerstraße with the newly added fifth floor. On the left of the entrance is the door of the inn, on the right the one of the saddler's workshop. (A-Wsa, Unterkammeramt, A33, Alte Baukonsense, 11811/1826)

The information in the Vivaldi literature (Talbot 1993, p. 69) that this house was destroyed in 1858, together with the Kärntnertor, is false. On Emil Hütter's elliptical watercolor of the Bürgerspitalszinshaus and its surroundings we can see the small atrium, the yellow facade and the round-shaped verdigris copper plated roof which had been added in 1826.

A clip from Emil Hütter's 1865 watercolor (Wien Museum). The Kärntnertortheater is at the center, on the upper left is a section of the Bürgerspitalszinshaus with the Komödiengassel, and visible on the far right is the green-roofed "Wallerisches Haus".

Augustin Markus Waller, the saddler who had given the house both its names, died on 1 August 1730, of biliary fever (his funeral cost 37 gulden 32 kreuzer), and, after having agreed to a settlement with her sons, his widow inherited the building.

Seal and signature of Vivaldi's landlady Agatha Waller on her will written on 14 August 1751 (A-Wsa, AZJ, A1, 10112/18. Jhdt.). Agatha Waller died on 11 December 1751.

Based on information in the Viennese topographical literature, some authors have pointed to the fact that Beethovens's lawyer Johann Zizius (1772–1824) and the legendary dancer Fanny Elßler lived in the Haus Stadt No. 1038. But from a musical point of view the far more prominent residents of this particular building were the composer Conradin Kreutzer (who lived there in 1830 with his family and his sister-in-law), the dancer and theater director Louis Duport and – in my opinion more interesting – Therese von Droßdik, née Malfatti, Beethoven's never-to-be bride, who died in this house on 27 April 1851.

After the obsequies in the cathedral, Vivaldi's body was transported all the way down the Kärntnerstraße to the Kärntnertor again, then across the 85 meters long bridge which spanned the city moat and the Kärntnertorbrücke across the Wien River to the cemetery of the Bürgerspital. 

The "Wallerisches Haus" beside the Kärntnertor on the right and the "Spitaller Gottesacker" beside the Karlskirche on the left on Joseph Daniel von Huber's 1778 map of Vienna (W-Waw, Sammlung Woldan).

The way across the Kärntnerbastei (A-Wsa,  Einzelstück 3.2.1.1.P1.65.1)

The cemetery of the Bürgerspital with the St. Augustine Chapel (built in 1701). This is not a contemporary drawing, but a nineteenth-century watercolor copy of the cemetery as it appears on Huber's map (Wien Museum). 

The groundplan of the Bürgerspital cemetery superimposed on a modern-day cadastral map (drawing by Othmar Jordan from Leopold Senfelder: Der kaiserliche Gottesacker vor dem Schottenthor, Berichte und Mittheilungen des Alterthumvereines zu Wien 37, Vienna 1902, p. 2)

 The "Spitaller Gottesacker" on Steinhausen's 1710 map of Vienna before the building of the Karlskirche (A-Wsa, Kartographische Sammlung, 3.2.1.1.P1.234.1)

The cemetery and the chapel were closed on 1 May 1783. In 1785, after the chapel had been torn down, the houses of the priest and the gravedigger were sold to the military and used as uniform depositories. Because these premises did not meet the demands, they were sold back to the Bürgerspital in 1788. In 1791, the ground was leased to the military command which established a riding area there, until in 1807, the area was put up for auction and a number of houses were built there.

The first page of the Vienna City Council's response of 17 November 1791 to the military command concerning the military's request to let the Bürgerspital cemetery be turned into a riding area ("Wegen Uiberlassung des Armensündergottesackers zur Errichtung eines Reiterpikets") (A-Wsa, Hauptregistratur, A17, 7/1791)

The memorial plaque for Vivaldi on the east wing of the Vienna University of Technology is slightly misplaced: the Bürgerspital cemetery was located closer to the Karlskirche, on the adjacent area between Argentinierstraße and Karlsgasse.

Vivaldi's Bahrleihbuch Entry in the Literature

Somehow the problems connected to the publication of the pivotal primary source already began in 1938 with Rodolfo Gallo, who, having never actually seen the original document at the Cathedral's archive in Vienna, published the entry with a wrong name of the book ("Totenbuch"), one transcription error ("Grabstall" instead of Grabstell), an incomplete folio number (only "Fol. 177"), and without the word "Pelican" at the end. Furthermore, Gallo failed to include any information regarding the general context of this document, as well as the currency of the expenses – mistakenly calling them "spese modeste" and noting their sum only as "19:45". He did not provide a usable translation of this entry and because of the words "im Satleri[schen] Haus" he erroneously assumed that Vivaldi had died "nella casa della famiglia Satler".

Gallo's unclear documentation was to affect the Vivaldi literature for decades. It seems easy to correctly transcribe a short entry concerning an eighteenth-century funeral, but for scholars who only knew two pages from the Bahrleihbuch this proved to be a too difficult task. In his article "Biographisches um Antonio Vivaldi" (Österreichische Musikzeitschrift 2/1952), Walter Kolneder more or less copied Gallo's version, adding the mistake "Kartnerthor", because he took the "f" (of "florin") for the letter t. Like Gallo, Kolneder also ignored the mysterious "Pelican". In his 1965 book Antonio Vivaldi, Kolneder added the word "Pelican" (without explaining its meaning), but provided a wrong shelfmark of the Bahrleihbuch, conflating it with "Tom. 63, p. 23" of the parish's regular death register. Equally flawed is the transcription in Karl Keller's book Antonio Vivaldi (Reclam 1991). A case in point is the presentation of the entry in Theophil Antonicek's and Elisabeth Hilscher's 1997 book Vivaldi. There is a wise rule concerning the publication of transcriptions from historical documents: avoid publishing them alongside facsimiles of the original source, because this might backfire. Antonicek and Hilscher provide a transcription of the list of expenses, but not only is their spelling flawed ("Bahrleibuch"), two of the numbers are wrong as well, and therefore do not add up to 19 gulden 45 kreuzer.

Antonicek/Hilscher: Vivaldi (Graz: Akademische Druck und Verlagsanstalt 1997, p. 137): The date is wrong and the expenses do not add up to 19 gulden 45 kreuzer.

A truly amazing conglobation of errors is the presentation of the document on p. 252 of Siegbert Rampe's Antonio Vivaldi und seine Zeit (Lilienthal: Laaber-Verlag, 2010). Rampe looked at the entries related to the two funerals before and after Vivaldi's and (because he could not read them) concluded the following: "The funeral of Lothar[sic] Englhart which preceded Vivaldi's only cost 12 kreuzer, Anton[sic] May's, the one after Vivaldi's on 28 July cost 1 gulden 27 kreuzer." The truth is: Caspar (not Lothar) Engelhart's son Bernhard was a two-year-old child, Peter May (son of Anton May) was a fifteen-month-old child. The "Pelican" was turned into a "Delican" in Rampe's edition of the entry, a word that makes no sense and is explained nowhere in the book. Because Rampe not only copied the misspelled "Windliechter", but also the list of expenses from Antonicek's edition, it is flawed (the numbers again do not add up to the correct sum).

A section of p. 252 of Rampe's book Antonio Vivaldi und seine Zeit. The date at the top "29. Juli" (copied from Antonicek and Hilscher) is wrong. The comma after "19" is wrong and the quotation mark does not mean gulden, it means kreuzer. Five sequins were not 19,7 ducats. Johann Joseph Fux's burial, which did not take place on 16, but on 15 February 1741, did not cost 170 gulden, but 180 gulden 52 kreuzer (Rampe knew nothing about Fux's burial, except what he had extrapolated from Heller's book). The "Spitaler Friedhof" was not located "unweit der Hofburg", the "Kuttenbuben" were not boys and they did not sing "Grablieder" (burial songs). The fact that Vivaldi was buried in the "Armesünder-Gottesacker" had nothing to do with his status as foreigner. Note that Rampe called the two dead children "die Herren Englhart und May". Together with the typo "Beerdingungen", this jumble is vintage Laaber material.

Enter the "Choirboys"

The honor of having created the myth of choirboys having sung at the "pauper's burial" of Vivaldi belongs to the great Vivaldi scholar Marc Pincherle who, in his 1948 book Vivaldi: Génie du baroque, translated – or rather interpreted – the entry in the Bahrleihbuch as follows.
Le livre de caisse de Saint-Etienne (même année, folio 177) indique de façon assez vague qu'il est mort d'une inflammation interne (an inneren Brand bschaut), et fournit le décompte des frais exposés pour ses humbles funérailles: 19 florins 45 kreutzer. Il n'a eu droit qu'au "Kleingleuth" (Kleingeläut) ou sonnerie des cloches pour les pauvres[!], moyennant 2 florins 36, à six porteurs de civière, à six enfants de chœur[!]; un noble homme[!] enterré la veille avait eu le glas à 4 florins 20, huit porteurs, douze enfant de chœur, six musiciens, le reste à l'avenant, à concurrence de 102 florins! (Pincherle 1948, p. 27)
This statement proves that at some point Pincherle must have seen (the by then unpublished) folio 177r of the original 1741 Bahrleihbuch. It also proves that he had only a small notion of what the words in this book really mean. Robbins Landon's misunderstanding, which consequently was to appear all over the Haydn literature, originates from this passage in Pincherle's book. A "Kleingleuth" was not a "pauper's peal of bells". 2 florins 36 kreuzer was a week's salary of a well-paid manservant. The commissioning of a holy mass cost 30 kreuzer in Vienna, a price that did not change for at least two centuries. The six "Kuttenbuben" were not even boys, but men in cowls and they surely did not sing. The "nobleman", who according to Pincherle was buried the day before Vivaldi, was actually a noblewoman: the widow Maria Agnes von Feichtenberg who had died of "Wassersucht" (dropsy) on 26 July 1741, at the "Goldener Hirsch", on the Fleischmarkt.

The entry concerning the burial of Maria Agnes von Feichtenberg on 27 July 1741, inside St. Stephen's Cathedral (A-Wd, BLB 1741, fol. 177)

Von Feichtenberg received a "Fürstengleuth" for 4 gulden 20 kreuzer, twelve Kuttenbuben folded their hands at her bier, and she had musicians (for six gulden) performing in the church and singing "[Der] grimige todt" which at the Cathedral at that time was the "ordinari" (standard) funeral song whose a capella performance always cost six gulden. That there were exactly six musicians was Pincherle's assumption. As can be seen, the item that made Feichtenberg's burial so expensive was not the "Gleuth", but the tomb in the crypt of the Cathedral which cost 50 gulden.

In his book Vivaldi (London: Chappell & Co., 1978), Alan Kendall took the mistaken "choirboys scenario" to an even more suggestive level. Basically echoing Pincherle, Kendall wrote:
Only nineteen florins and forty-five kreutzer were spent on the funeral, and he was only entitled to the Kleingeläut or pauper's[sic] peal of bells, which only cost two florins and thirty-six kreutzer. He has six pall-bearers and six choirboys[sic], too, but one sees how mean all of this was when the same records reveal that a nobleman's[sic] funeral might cost at least one hundred florins. (Kendall 1978, p. 93)
The idea of Vivaldi having died a pauper now really took hold. In the 1993 edition of his book on Vivaldi in the Dent Master Musicians series, Michael Talbot writes:
The expenses, which totalled 19 florins and 45 kreutzers, were kept to the minimum. If Mozart's burial 50 years later was that of a pauper, Vivaldi's deserves that sad epithet equally. (Talbot 1993, p. 69)
In his book Vivaldi: Voice of the Baroque (London: Thames & Hudson, 1993), Robbins Landon expressed a similar judgement: "He was entitled, only to the Kleingeläut, or the pauper's peal of bells, costing two florins and thirty-six kreuzer." In his Vivaldi article in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Talbot states: "[...] he was given a pauper's burial on the latter day at the Hospital Burial Ground (Spittaler Gottesacker)." (New Grove, Vol. 26, p. 820). In the other prominent music encyclopedia Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Karl Keller tells us that Vivaldi was buried "mit einfachster Zeremonie" (with the simplest ceremony) (MGG, Vol. 17, col. 89). None of the authors who wrote books about Vivaldi ever scrutinized the Viennese sources to actually figure out how obsequies at the time of Vivaldi's death were performed in Vienna.

Obsequies at St. Stephen's Cathedral Around 1740

For someone, who for about fifteen years has been studying the Bahrleihbücher of St. Stephen's (which survive from 1662 into the 1830s, with lots of gaps in the late years), Vivaldi's entry leaves no room for ambiguity or misunderstandings. It refers to a regular funeral ceremony with a "Kleingleuth", i.e. the peal of the small bell on the west section of the Cathedral's roof. At the time of Vivaldi's death, there were four kinds of peals of bells at St. Stephen's (fl stands for florins, x for kreuzer):
  1. "Großgleuth" at 9 fl 41 x (or ordinari at 19 fl 22 x)
  2. "Fürstengleuth" at 4 fl 20 x
  3. "Bürgergleuth" at 3 fl 45 x
  4. "Kleingleuth" at 2 fl 36 x
These four classes of "Gleuth" actually referred to four different bells on the cathedral. On rare occasions, at a price of 50 gulden, the "große Glocke" (the old Pummerin) was pealed, but this was not a separate class, it was an additional luxury which was only available for members of the Landstände  (i.e. the noble members of the Niederösterreichische Landtafel). Of course, combinations were also possible: after a "Großgleuth" at the beginning of the ceremony, there could be an additional "Fürstengleuth" right before the Requiem prayer ("zum Requiem vorgeleuth"). There were bells of many other churches that could be pealed on demand on the occasion of funerals at St. Stephen's: the Magdalene Chapel beside the Cathedral, St. Peter's Church, the Minoritenkirche, the Bürgerspitalskirche, the Ruprechtskirche, "Unser Lieben Frauen Stiegen", St. Nicola, St. Salvator and the "Deutsches Hauß". Furthermore, there were bells of chapels in privately owned houses all over the city that could be pealed for funerals, such as the ones in the Freisingerhof, the Gundelhof, the Seitzerhof, and the Johanneshof. Many funerals, like those of small children and really poor people, had no peal of bells at all.

 A funeral without a peal of bells: Georg Planckh being buried on 5 May 1740, in the "Spitaller Gottsacker" (A-Wd, BLB 1740, fol. 119r)

There were a number of general rules and customs concerning funerals at the Cathedral that can be figured out by studying the eighteenth-century Bahrleihbücher of St. Stephen's. The "Kleingleuth" was not part of a pauper's burial. Real pauper's burials were "gratis".

The "gratis" burial of Giulio Cesare Birravri on 30 May 1741, in the cemetery of St. Stephen's (A-Wd, BLB 1741, fol. 131r). This entry proves that poor adult foreigners were also buried in the "St. Ste[phans] Freind Hof", i.e. the cemetery around the Cathedral.

The "Kleingleuth" was the standard procedure for the funeral ceremony of adult citizens. Court officials, civil servants, civil craftsmen, and secular priests all received this kind of peal of bells. Karl Heller's claim that "the sum of nineteen florins and forty-five kreutzers would have been sufficient for only the simplest of ceremonies" (Heller 1997, p. 265) is simply false.

The entry concerning the funeral of the "Königlicher Laufer" (Royal footman) Lucrezio Bonno on 8 April 1742, which proceeded exactly like Vivaldi's (A-Wd, BLB 1742, fol. 95r). Bonno (born in 1683 in Pralboino) was the father of Hofkapellmeister Joseph Bonno (1711–1788). Bonno's first name was not Giuseppe (as given on Wikipedia and in the recent Mozart literature), but expressedly "Joseph Johann Baptist2, because his godfather was Joseph I. Contrary to the date given in the literature, Joseph Bonno was born on 30 January 1711 (A-Wd, Tom. 54, fol. 397r).

The entry concerning the funeral of the secular priest Joseph Russignol on 1 February 1741, in the "Schwarz Spanier" cemetery on the Alsergrund (A-Wd, BLB 1741, fol. 24r). Except for the Kelch (chalice), which was put on the bier, this funeral resembled Vivaldi's.

The entry concerning the funeral of the composer Carlo Agostino Badia on 25 September 1738 (A-Wd, BLB 1738, fol. 254r). Note that, owing to the lack of lanterns, the funeral of the "Kaÿs: Hof- und Cammer-Musicus" was two gulden cheaper than Vivaldi's, suggesting that the lanterns at Vivaldi's funeral were a dispensible luxury.

The entry concerning the funeral on 9 Desember 1741, of the court musician (bass singer) Marco Antonio Berti (A-Wd, BLB 1741, fol. 269v). Because Berti was buried in the cemetery around the Cathedral, his expenses included the ringing of the cemetery bell and the fee for the gravedigger which added 66 kreuzer to the costs of Vivaldi's ceremony.

The class of peal of bells was not the decisive factor concerning the costs of funeral ceremonies at the cathedral. The most expensive items – apart from the very high costs of tombs in the cathedral's crypt which sometimes came with the additional wage of a master builder – were always the services of qualified people, such as the presence of a high number of additional clergymen (Curaten and Canonici). One Canonicus cost three gulden, a curate two, an accolidus (acolyte) 50 kreuzer. The Kuttenbuben only cost nine kreuzer apiece, the better Minestranten cost one gulden each. High fees had to be paid for musicians (in variable numbers) who actually sang a Miserere and one or several "Motteten" (an exception being the obsequies of prominent musicians such as Antonio Caldara for whom, on 29 December 1736, his colleagues performed "gratis"). Even more expensive was the participation of instrumentalists (for 15 gulden) who accompanied the singing "mit Sartin" (also spelled "mit Sardin") or "Sartindl" (with muted trumpets or trombones). The most expensive musical service available was the performance of an actual Requiem which required additional musicians for at least 15, or up to 24 gulden. Sometimes the conduct was followed by a group of poor people from various poorhouses, such as the "Nepomuceni Spitall" on the Landstraße or the poorhouse in the Alstergasse, who received alms from the attendants and the clergy. This was an important additional income for the poor and this custom was observed in Vienna into the nineteenth century (on its way from the Alsergrund to Währing, Beethoven's coffin was followed by inmates of the "Versorgungshaus am Alserbach" who got paid for this service). Sometimes the bier was also accompanied by regular people who are listed as Steuerdiener (tax payers) in the Bahrleihbuch.

A group of poor people, following the bier of Georg Gaber, a law student, who was buried on 23 December 1741, on the "Spitaller Gottsacker": "Mitgang. 12. paar arme Leüth auß Nep:[omuceni] Spitall 12. paar auß d[er] alstergass[en] [Gleuth] Paulaner und Francis:[caner]. Pelican" (A-Wd, BLB 1741, fol. 280r).

What follows are several examples of expensive eighteenth-century funerals at St. Stephen's Cathedral.

The entry concerning the exequies of the architect Joseph Emanuel Johann Fischer von Erlach in the evening of 29 June 1742 (A-Wd, BLB 1742, fol. 173v and 174r). Prominent people often received a Nachtbegräbnüß (night funeral). Note the five altars which were put up on the following day and the additional "gleuth" at "[St.] Magdalena, Bürger Spitall" and the "Johannes Hof".

The first part of the entry concerning the funeral on 10 January 1726, of Carlo Agostino Badia's first wife, the singer Anna Maria Badia, née Lisi (A-Wd, BLB 1726, fol. 7r), whom Badia had married on 18 October 1700 (A-Wd, Tom. 34, pag. 710). Again, the grave in the crypt was the most expensive item. The last item are "12 stiell" (12 chairs). Note that the song "[Der] grimmige Todt" could also be accompanied by muted trumpets or trombones ("mit Sartindln"). When Johann Steinecker tried to transcribe this entry for his 1993 dissertation Die Opern und Serenate von Carlo Agostino Badia (supervised by Herbert Seifert), he could not figure out the meaning of the note "grimmiger Todt mit Sartindln" and transcribed it as "gereinigte Tote mit Sortinol", as if "Sortinol" was some kind of disinfectant for corpses. This is one of the all-time funniest transcription mishaps in Viennese historical musicology. Several gravely bungled passages in Steinecker's dissertation prove that his supervisor never read the thesis.

The obsequies for Princess Maria Theresia von Auersperg, née von Rappach, on 21 January 1741, with "VorLeithen" (a preceding peal), two peals of the Pummerin ("gar grosse glocken") on two separate days, and a double ("ordinari") "grossgleüth". This was not a a funeral, but only the consecration of the Princess whose body, on 23 January 1741, was transferred to Garsten where it was buried in the crypt of the monastery (A-Wd, BLB 1741, fol. 16r).

The entry concerning the exequies of the merchant Joseph Jenamy on 12 November 1740 (A-Wd, BLB 1740, fol. 259). The list of expenses included a "Fürstengleuth" and the already known expensive grave in the crypt. Here we see that the song "Der grimmige Todt" was also performed without brass and (in addition to the Miserere for six gulden) had to be paid extra. The external bells included St. Magdalene's, St. Peter's Church, and St. George's Chapel in the Freisingerhof. Joseph Jenamy (b. 1686 in Saint Nicolas de Véroce) was a great-uncle of Nikolaus Joseph Jenamy (1747–1819) who, in 1768, married Louise Victoire Noverre (1749–1812), the dedicatee of Mozart's piano concerto K. 271.

The most expensive funeral in the Bahrleihbuch of 1741 is that of Johann Caspar Joseph Kolb von Kollenburg, "Weÿl[and] der K.K. M[ajestät] Unter Stabelmaister" (deputy staff holder of His late I. & R. Majesty Charles VI), which cost 195 gulden and 16 kreuzer (A-Wd, BLB 1741, fol. 10v and 11r). It included a Großgleuth, a tomb in the crypt, a Requiem with Fürstengleuth, 30 Kuttenbuben, and five altars.

The mysterious "Pelican" that appears at the end of the expenses for Vivaldi's funeral and which previous authors either ignored, or left uncommented, was a picture of a pelican as a Christian symbol that was put on the bier.

A pelican reviving her young with blood from her own breast (NL-DHmw, 10 B 25, fol. 32r)

Because the Physiologus claimed that the pelican provides its own blood to its young by wounding its own breast when no other food is available, this bird became a symbol of the Passion of Christ and the Eucharist.

A pelican with her young on the seal of the actor Johann Baptist Hilverding (A-Wsa, Depositenamt)

There were several pictures that could be put on the bier at St. Stephen's: pictures of St. Sebastian, St. John of Nepomuk, the Good Sheperd, Todtangst (Agony of Christ), the Holy Rosary, the Holy Trinity, one of a Bruderschaft (confraternity), a Dominicaner, a Carmeliter, and two (unspecified) "Franciscaner Bilter". But the pelican was by far the most frequently used. Sometimes, a devotional scapular was also put on the bier. The custom of displaying these pictures may go back far into the seventeenth century, but it is documented in a Bahrleihbuch for the first time only in 1682.

The final passage of the entry in the Bahrleihbuch concerning the funeral of Catharina Regina Thenig on 30 December 1682: "Seint mitgangen Kaÿ:[serliche] Spitall:[er] und Franscis: Gleüth beÿ St: Maria Magd: Bildter: Todtangst und Francisc." ("on the bier the pictures of the Agony of Christ and the Franciscans") (A-Wd, BLB 1682, fol. 171v).

The final passage of the entry concerning the funeral of the mason Adam Häringsleben on 12 Januar 1683: "Haben tragen 8 Steür diener seint mitgang[en] Kaÿ:[serliche] Spitäller Francisc: Dominic: und Minorit[en] Gleüth S:[ancta] Maria M[a]gd: S. Georgj S: Petri auf d[er] Pahr Pelican und St. Sebastiani Bildt." ("on the bier the pictures of the pelican and St. Sebastian") (A-Wd, BLB 1683, fol. 3v).

The final note of the entry concerning the funeral of Mathias Napert on 5 May 1740: "Mitgang 12. paar arme Leüth auß Nep[omuceni] Spitall 12. paar auß  d[er] Alstergass[en] Franciscaner, Domin:[icaner] gleüth. Magdalena, Bilder Pelican, Rosen Cr:[antz] guten Hürten." ("pictures: pelican, rosary and Good Sheperd") (A-Wd,  BLB 1740, fol. 118v).

The four categories of "Gleuth" existed until March 1751, when an Imperial edict replaced them with four "Classen". The prices of the peals in these classes were reduced to (from 1st to 4th class) seven, four, three, and one gulden. These classes could be subdivided into rubrics – mostly for the burials of children – but to delve deeper into the intricacies of this new system would lead too far. The first funeral ceremony at the Cathedral, which was accounted according to the new regulation, took place on 3 March 1751.

A clip from the entry concerning the funeral of the baby girl Magdalena Krumbschnabel on 3 March 1751: "Die Erste Begräbnuß nach de[m] Neüe[n] Patent. 2te Class Rubrica Tertia" ("The first burial according to the new edict. Second class third rubric [a child between one and seven years]") (A-Wd, BLB 1751, fol. 38v)

It has been suggested in the literature that Vivaldi may already have died on 26 or 27 July. But after closely comparing the official death register of the Vienna Magistrate (the Totenbeschauprotokoll) with  the 1741 Bahrleihbuch of St. Stephen's, I came to the conclusion that during the summer, people in Vienna were always buried the very same day they died. Especially interesting – although not particularly surprising – is the fact that there are a number of deaths recorded in the Bahrleihbuch that are missing in the Totenbeschauprotokoll. The fact that Vivaldi was buried in a cemetery which was traditionally called "Armesünder-Gottesacker" (cemetery of the executed) has sometimes been explained with the composer's status as poor foreigner, who had no civil rights, because he was not a citizen of the Austrian monarchy. This hypothesis is false. It was a complete coincidence that Vivaldi was buried on the Wieden, because the records show that in the eighteenth century the dead were buried in whatever cemetery at the moment could provide space. Apart from the Cathedral's crypt (where the graves were expensive), the following burial sites were used for people who were consecrated at St. Stephen's at that time – regardless of their age, wealth or nationality: the cemetery of St. Stephen's (surrounding the Cathedral), the "Spitaller Gottesacker" on the Wieden, the cemetery of St. Nikolai ("auf die Landstraß"), the crypt of the convent church of the Trinitarian Order and the "Montserrater Gottesacker"on the Alsergrund ("zu den Schwarzspaniern"), the crypts of St. Michael's Church, the Minorites Church and the Augustinian Church, and the monastery church of St. Nikola on the Singerstraße. The fact that Vivaldi was buried in an own grave at a relatively high cost of two gulden makes the fact that his funeral has repeatedly been described as that "of a pauper" even more bizarre.

Back to Haydn

The spark of wishful thinking concerning Vivaldi's funeral jumped to Haydn scholarship when H. C. Robbins Landon published his five-volume standard work Haydn: Chronicle and Works. Robbins Landon, of course, immediately fell in love with the idea of choirboys in 1741 which were nothing but Kendall's mistranslation of Pincherle's mistranslation of the original word "Kuttenbuben". In the first volume (p. 58) of his Haydn chronicle, Robbins Landon went so far as to even quote from Kendall's Vivaldi book.


"It seems almost certain." Does it? In his 1993 book Vivaldi: Voice of the Baroque, Robbins Landon (providing a wrong folio number for the Bahrleihbuch entry) again rhapsodized on one of his most beloved bit of trivia:
There were six pall-bearers and six choirboys from the parish church where Vivaldi died, which happened to be St. Stephen's Cathedral. The six members of the Cantorei of St. Stephen's included the young Joseph Haydn, who was thus probably one of the few to witness the demise of this great composer, now a pauper and already forgotten, placed, like Mozart half a century later, in an ignominious and anonymous grave somewhere under the great capital city of the Austrian Monarchy. (Robbins Landon, Vivaldi, p. 166)
From the countless books about Haydn that present Robbins Landon's idea as proven fact, I want to point out Hans-Josef Irmen's Joseph Haydn Leben und Werk (Vienna: Böhlau, 2007) where the information that Haydn sang at Vivaldi's funeral is even attributed to Pohl ("and others"[sic!]): "Pohl u.a. berichten, daß der junge Haydn bei den Exequien für Vivaldi mitgewirkt habe." (Irmen, p. 335). Of course, Carl Ferdinand Pohl (1819–1887) reports no such thing in his biography of Haydn. Pohl did not even know that Vivaldi had died in Vienna.

It is amazing to see how the probability of this romantic scenario is suddenly destroyed by having seen all the above entries from the eighteenth-century Bahrleihbücher. From 1715 on, the Cantorei of St. Stephen's employed six Capellknaben (choirboys). The documents presented above show that it was a mere coincidence that exactly six Kuttenbuben attended Vivaldi's funeral. And yet, this exact number – the number of Capellknaben at the Cantorei – played a major role in the misunderstanding that led to the metamorphosis of these Kuttenbuben into choirboys.

Capellknaben and Kuttenbuben

Haydn was accepted into the Cantorei of St. Stephen's Cathedral in 1740. Since Kapellmeister Reutter was in a position to only pick the most talented choirboys, Haydn's recruitment was a big privilege and a stroke of luck for the country boy. Haydn lived together with the other choirboys in the building of the Cantorei which was administered by the municipal Kirchenmeisteramt (i.e. the City of Vienna). The administration of the Cathedral and its music was traditionally subordinate to the Vienna Magistrate, which is the reason that Mozart, when in 1791 he applied for an adjunct postion at the cathedral, submitted his application to the municipal authorities. The so-called Kirchenmeisteramtsrechungen (ledgers of the church administrator of the Vienna Magistrate) provide detailed information about the organisation of the Cathedral and its employees. They show that the records of expenses for the regular staff ("Außgaab auf ordinarÿ Besoldung", i.e. expenses for ordinary salaries) were strictly separated from the expenses for the musicians of the Cantorei.

The beginning of the list of expenses ("Außgaab. Auf die Cantoreÿ beÿ St. Stephann") for nine months for the Cantorei of St. Stephen's in the 1742 Kirchenmeisteramtsrechnung (A-Wsa, Handschriften, A 41.24, fol. 79r). In 1741, the Kirchenmeister (church administrator) was Claudius Jenamy (1702–1776), a nephew of the abovementioned merchant Joseph Jenamy. Today the eighteenth-century Kirchenmeisteramtsrechnungen are held by three different archives: the Vienna Municipal Archives, the Vienna Diözesanarchiv, and the Domarchiv.

In 1742, the choir at St. Stephen's Cathedral consisted of the following musicians:
Kapellmeister Georg von Reutter
Six Capellknaben
Nine Vocalisten
Extra-Vocalisten (whose number varied according to requirements)
Subcantor Adam Gegenbauer
The organist at that time was Anton Neckh who in 1736 had succeeded Reutter's son Karl on this post. Georg von Reutter's annual salary consisted of 300 gulden Gebühr (salary), plus 24 gulden Kleÿdergeld (clothing allowance). For the boarding of the six Capellknaben (among them Joseph Haydn) Reutter received an additional sum of 1,200 gulden plus 75 gulden Instructionsgeld (teaching fee). Each of the nine Vocalisten received an annual salary of 130 gulden plus an annual Choraladjutum (choral subsidy) of 26 gulden 60 kreuzer per capita. In addition to that they were also paid one gulden "Rorate Geld" plus (at least in 1742) one gulden forty kreuzer for substituting for dismissed choirboys.

Only two Kuttenbuben were permanently employed at the Cathedral. In 1742, they were assisted by an "Extra Jung" (extra boy). The other Kuttenbuben worked freelance for a fee of nine kreuzer for every funeral which added up to a nice income of about five gulden a month. This relatively high income (and the income of the permanently employed Kuttenbuben) are proof that those "Buben" were not boys at all, but adult men who were majors (above 24 years of age). The term "Kuttenbuben" had originated in the middle ages and was still applied to men dressed in cowls centuries later. The two regular Kuttenbuben were members of the ordinary staff and their salary was filed under the "ordinarÿ Besoldung". Among the employees that are listed together with the Kuttenbuben were the Bahrleiher Johann Leydl, the Capelldiener at the cemetery "vor dem Schottenthor" Bartholome Kießling, and the two church servants and "Preinglöckler" (the ringers of the prime bell). In addition to their individual annual salary of sixty gulden, each of the two regular Kuttenbuben also received five gulden for their service during the litany for the Court. The "Extra Jung" Geusgruber was paid 50 gulden a year. The two items in the 1742 Kirchenmeisteramtsrechnung pertaining to the salaries of the three Kuttenbuben, read as follows:
147:/ Denen 2. Kutten Jungen Dobraletnig und Vogl ihr gebühr von 1. April bis lezten Xber 742. auf 3/4. Jahr lauth N° 147. vergüthet . . . . 90 .––
148:/ Dem Extra Jung Michael Geusgruber sein gebühr von 1. April bis lezten Xbr 742. auf 3/4. Jahr inhalt N:° 148. entrichtet mit . . . . . . . . 37 " 30.
The entries concerning the salaries of the Cathedral's three "Kutten Jungen" Dobraletnig, Vogl and Geusgruber between 1 April and 31 December 1742 (A-Wsa, Handschriften, A 41.24, fol. 77v and 78r)

The overall expenses of the Kirchenmeisteramt in 1742 amounted to 20,255 gulden and half a kreuzer. The surplus in that year was 2,722 gulden and 29 kreuzer.

Claudius Jenamy's seal and signature in the 1742 Kirchenmeisteramtsrechnung of St. Stephen's

Conclusions

  • Vivaldi's funeral ceremony on 28 July 1741, at St. Stephen's corresponded to that of ordinary Viennese citizens. Because the performance of music was not ordered and paid, no music was performed at this ceremony.
  • To have musicians sing at a funeral at St. Stephen's in 1741, one had to pay at least six gulden for the performance of the song "Der grimmig Tod". A performance of a motet was even more expensive, especially if it was accompanied "mit Sardin" (i.e. with muted trumpets or trombones).
  • The Kuttenbuben who were present at Vivaldi's exequies did not sing. They just stood at the altar and folded their hands in silence. They were not choirboys of the Cantorei, but members of the ordinary staff of the Cathedral. There was a strict organizational separation between the ordinary employees and the musicians of the Cathedral.
  • Joseph Haydn had nothing to do with Vivaldi's obsequies. The mistaken assumption that choirboys were present at this ceremony originated with Marc Pincherle, who, in 1948, translated the entry "6 Kuttenbuben" in the original source with "six enfants de chœur". After Alan Kendall, in 1978, had turned these "enfants de chœur" into "choirboys", Robbins Landon could not resist the appeal of this scenario and presented Haydn's singing at Vivaldi's exequies as a fact. It is a myth.

Despite repeated statements in the literature that the chances are slim of finding unknown sources concerning Vivaldi's final stay in Vienna, research on this topic is far from finished. It has only just begun.

© Dr. Michael Lorenz 2014. All rights reserved.

Updated: 22 May 2024